The past decade has been marked by a technological revolution driven by the convergence of the data processing industry with the consumer electronics industry. The effect has driven technologies which have been known and available but relatively quiescent over the years. Two of these technologies are the Internet-related distribution and object oriented programming systems. Both of these technologies are embodied in the object oriented Java programming system. The computer and communications industries are extensively participating in the development and continual upgrading of the Java system. For details and background with respect to the Java system, reference may be made to a typical text, Just Java, 2nd Edition, Peter van der Linden, Sun Microsystems, 1997. The convergence of the electronic entertainment and consumer industries with data processing greatly accelerated the demand for wide ranging communications distribution channels and the World Wide Web (Web) or Internet (the terms are used interchangeably herein), which had quietly existed for over a generation as a loose academic and government data distribution facility, reached “critical mass” and commenced a period of phenomenal expansion that has not, as yet, abated.
With the expanded accessibility of tens of thousands of programmers to each other, not to mention to potential users of such programs via the expanded Internet client base, an obvious need became apparent: cooperative programming systems wherein program developers could coact to continuously expand and enhance existing programs in a distributed programming environment. Also, users could readily obtain and apply these developed programs. Object oriented programming, which also had been virtually languishing for a generation, offered the solution. With its potentially interchangeable objects or units within which both data attributes and functions were stored in a predefined uniform framework, as well as the predefined object interfaces with each other, object oriented programming systems have found acceptance as the programming system for the Internet. In all areas of data processing, communications as well as the electronic entertainment and consumer industries having anything to do with the Internet, there has been a substantial movement to Java, the Sun Microsystems originated object oriented programming system.
Despite all of these advances, there still remains great resistance in all industries and business fields to new computer programs and significant program upgrades that offer much in productivity increases. This resistance results from past experience that equates to installing new computer programs or significant program upgrades in existing systems with large amounts of down time, during which the customer's business, manufacturing facility or individual worker functions are inoperative or operate at diminished levels. When a business or production facility is trying to decide whether to install a new computer system, the concern about down time, the possible loss of business, as well as stress on the workers involved very often outweighs the cost of the installation in influencing the decision. The concern about business and production delays resulting from installation has become so significant that small business customers are reluctant to try to make program changes on their own.
The Web has been providing an extensive carrier for the distribution of all matter of data content, e.g. text, images, moving images (video recordings) and computer programs. However, thus far, it has not provided much help to the small business customers wishing to install new computer programs or making significant upgrades in such programs. Often the installation of computer programs transmitted over the Web will require even greater computer sophistication than direct installation of such programs because the customer is then required to have some additional knowledge of the Web and its protocols.
As the present invention involves the basic Web document or page, some background as to the structure of the Web document is appropriate. The basic Web document is formatted in a markup language, usually HTML. The Java documentation program, JavaDoc, will produce standard HTML files for outputs to computer controlled displays to provide standard natural language displays of the program documentation.
HTML is used there for all forms of display documentation including the markup of hypertext and hypermedia documents, usually stored with their respective documents on a Web server in addition to the above-described programming distribution. HTML is an application of SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), an ISO standard for defining the structure and contents of any digital document. It should be recognized that any of the aspects of the present invention illustrated with respect to HTML would be equally applicable to SGML. For further details on Java, JavaDoc or HTML, reference may be made to the texts Just Java (referenced above) or Java in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition, David Flanagan, O'Reilly publisher, 1997.